Helloween


Helloween is a German power metal band founded in 1984 in Hamburg by members of bands Iron Fist, Gentry, Second Hell and Powerfool. The band has at times been called one of the most influential European heavy metal bands of the 1980s. Its first lineup consisted of singer and guitarist Kai Hansen, bassist Markus Grosskopf, guitarist Michael Weikath and drummer Ingo Schwichtenberg. By the time Hansen left Helloween in 1989 to form Gamma Ray, the band had evolved into a five-piece, with Michael Kiske taking over as lead vocalist. Schwichtenberg and Kiske both parted ways with Helloween in 1993; Schwichtenberg died two years later as the result of suicide. Between then and 2016, there had been numerous line-up changes, leaving Grosskopf and Weikath as the only remaining original members. As a septet, their current lineup features all of the surviving members of the Keeper of the Seven Keys lineup, in addition to the remaining members from the Keeper of the Seven Keys: The Legacy-era.
Since its inception, Helloween has released 17 studio albums, five live albums, three EPs and 31 singles. The band was honored with 14 gold and six platinum awards and has sold more than 10 million records worldwide. Helloween has been referred to as the "fathers of power metal", as well as one of the so-called "big four" of the genre's early German scene, along with Grave Digger, Rage and Running Wild, and one of the "big four" bands of the entire genre, alongside Blind Guardian, Sabaton, and DragonForce.
The staff of Loudwire named them the 34th-best metal band of all time.

History

Early years and first album (1984–1986)

Helloween was formed 1984 in Hamburg, West Germany. Its name was inspired by the film Halloween. The original line-up included Kai Hansen on vocals and rhythm guitar, Michael Weikath on lead guitar, Markus Grosskopf on bass and Ingo Schwichtenberg on drums. That year, the band signed with Noise Records and recorded two songs for a Noise compilation album called Death Metal. The compilation featured the bands Hellhammer, Running Wild and Dark Avenger. The two tracks were "Oernst of Life" by Weikath and Hansen's "Metal Invaders," a faster version of which would appear on the band's first full-length album.
Helloween recorded and released its first record in 1985, a self-titled EP containing five tracks. Also that year, the band released its first full-length album, Walls of Jericho, which helped spawn speed metal. During the following concert tour, Hansen had difficulties singing and playing the guitar at the same time. Hansen's last recording as the band's lead singer was in 1986 on a vinyl EP titled Judas, which contained the song "Judas" and live versions of "Ride the Sky" and "Guardians" recorded at Gelsenkirchen. Following these releases, Helloween started the search for a new vocalist.
Hansen explained in an interview 1999:

''Keeper of the Seven Keys'' (1986–1989)

The band found an 18-year-old vocalist, Michael Kiske, from a local Hamburg band named Ill Prophecy. Kiske was initially uninterested in them, having heard the more thrashy Walls of Jericho, but after Weikath insisted, he attended one of their sessions and heard some songs they had composed for his voice, and he changed his mind.
With their new lead vocalist in tow, Helloween approached record labels Noise International and RCA and proposed the release of a double-LP to introduce the line-up. This proposition was turned down.
Instead, they recorded a single album, resulting in Keeper of the Seven Keys: Part I. The album was released by Noise Records on 23 May 1987, months after the band spent the winter of 1986 into 1987 hard at work inside Horus Sound Studio in Hannover, Germany. It consisted of songs mostly written by Hansen. Due to guitarist Michael Weikath's illness, he was recovering from a nervous breakdown, all the rhythm guitars on the album were played by Hansen. Weikath was only able to play some guitar solos and only wrote the ballad "A Tale That Wasn't Right". Weikath said in an interview: "I was pleased to still be in the band."
The album received great reviews from the press and a great response from the fans. In addition, it made Helloween a benchmark to measure power metal bands. The positive reception took Helloween across the ocean, as they toured the US together with Grim Reaper and Armored Saint. Their American distributor at the time, RCA, got them to record a video for the epic "Halloween", but cut it to four minutes so that the video could be played on MTV. However, after the European tour together with then-unknown American thrash metal band Overkill, the first struggles within the band started taking shape.
Exhausted from touring, Hansen asked the band to take a short break from live performances. However, as the band was just starting to gain momentum the time to take a break was just not right. The disputes ranged from arguing about their musical direction on the future releases to extensive touring and other, mostly insignificant topics. Hansen started contemplating leaving the band.
In August 1988, Helloween released Keeper of the Seven Keys: Part II. This time the record featured more Weikath-penned tracks. The idea behind this was that the first album should feature tracks written by Hansen due to their similarity to the style of their debut, while the second album would feature tracks composed by Weikath which were a lot more mainstream by comparison. The album capitalized on the success of Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 1 and picks up where it left off. Success bloomed all over Europe, Asia and even the US. The album went gold in Germany, reached No. 108 in the US, hit the UK top 30 albums and single "Dr Stein" reached No. 57.
Despite the vast commercial success of the Keeper's part two, the rift between the band members kept growing. They spent more time arguing about the music rather than composing it. Hansen called for a meeting and once again asked the band if they could take a break from touring.
The band got the chance to perform, in front of 100,000 people, as a part of the Monsters of Rock festival along with Iron Maiden, David Lee Roth, Kiss, Megadeth and Guns N' Roses at Donington Park on 20 August 1988.
Around the same time, the tension between the band and their record label Noise led to an argument which would later lead to a lawsuit. The band was discontent with how much they were being paid taking into account great record and merchandise sales, as well as frequent touring. Helloween also supported Iron Maiden on their Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour, on some dates in Europe.
In the fall of 1988, the band went on yet another European tour, now as headlining act, named "Pumpkins Fly Free Tour", which spawned their first ever live album, released the year after, titled Live in the U.K. recorded during their show in Scotland. The same record was also released as Keepers Live in Japan and I Want Out Live in the US.
MTV put the single "I Want Out" into heavy rotation. A video that was directed by Storm Thorgerson. For "I Want Out", Hansen very publicly laid out his disillusion with life as a member of Helloween at this time, explaining:
In support of its Headbangers Ball show, MTV also presented the Headbangers Ball Tour in U.S. and invited Helloween to be a part of it in 1989. However, before the start of that tour, in December 1988 Kai Hansen broke the news to the other members that he was leaving Helloween. Hansen's last show with the band was at The Hummingbird, Birmingham, UK on 8 November 1988.

Hansen, Schwichtenberg and Kiske's departures (1989–1993)

Hansen officially left Helloween on 1 January 1989, and the band chose Roland Grapow to replace him. Grapow was originally discovered in a club in Hamburg, Germany playing with his band Rampage. Helloween guitarist Michael Weikath kept Grapow's name in mind in the event Hansen would potentially leave.
Grapow, who was a car mechanic at the time, stated in 2017 that, if Weikath had not happened to ask him to join the band, he would have kept his job and given up on his dream of becoming a professional musician. Grapow said in 2020:
The inaugural Headbangers Ball Tour started in April 1989 with Helloween joining San Francisco Bay Area thrash metal band Exodus in support of headlining act Anthrax. The band was slotted in the prestigious second spot, right before Anthrax's set. On the heels of this exposure to U.S. audiences, the band achieved worldwide success. Kiske reflected at the time:
At the height of their success Helloween decided to sign with then-major label EMI Records after being urged to do so by their management company Sanctuary, who also managed Iron Maiden. Their former label Noise Records sued them for breach of contract which effectively put the band on hold. Between June 1989 and April 1992 they did not play one show. All the momentum the band had built up came to a halt.
Their first album with new guitarist Grapow Pink Bubbles Go Ape was released on EMI in the spring of 1991 in Europe and Japan. In the rest of the world as well as the band's home country Germany the album was delayed until April 1992 due to the ongoing legal battle between the band's current and former labels. By that time the music landscape had changed drastically. It also did not help that Helloween moved even further away from their speed metal roots and further embrace the hard rocking side of their sound. As a result, Pink Bubbles Go Ape failed commercially and tensions started to build amongst the band members.
They played their first show on their "Quick Hello Tour" in Hamburg 30 April 1992 and continued with some more dates in Europe and the band also went to Japan in the autumn of 1992.
The follow-up Chameleon was released on EMI in the summer of 1993. The very experimental album was a commercial failure. The band's diversion away from the sound that had made them famous alienated a large portion of their fanbase.
The original drummer Ingo Schwichtenberg was then fired from the band due to his deteriorating mental state.
Grosskopf said 1996:
Schwichtenberg could not be part of the band anymore until he recovered from drugs and alcohol abuse and took his medications against schizophrenia. After a long telephone call with Weikath, in which he explained why they had made that hard and painful decision, Schwichtenberg was asked to leave Helloween.
He was replaced by session drummer Ritchie Abdel-Nabi on a temporary basis to finish the Chameleon Tour. Also many of the European dates were cancelled. Helloween played in half-filled venues and their decision to focus the setlist mostly on Chameleon and Pink Bubbles songs did not help either.
Weikath said 1994 about Kiske and the Chameleon Tour:
Meanwhile, the conflicts within the rest of the band worsened and the decision was made to fire Kiske. His last performance with the band was at a Charity show at Rockfabrik Ludwigsburg 22 December 1993, until he returned to the stage with Helloween 24 years later.
Kiske did not have any contact with Grosskopf and Weikath for many years. He would later release solo albums with different musical directions. In 2008, Kiske released Past in Different Ways; an album featuring most of his old Helloween songs, albeit rearranged and re-recorded acoustically. Commenting on Kiske's dismissal, Grosskopf later said:
1993 would come to a close for Helloween with no singer, no drummer, and no record contract.
Weikath said 1994:
Grosskopf continued: